


Aftermath

by Ladybug_21



Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Minor Character(s), Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22618123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Robbie Morton's death drew them all into the same tangled web of events, forever changing their worlds. Afterwards, life could not go on as before.(Really just an excuse to imagine the lingering impact of the events of Season 3 on five secondary characters. Serious spoilers involved, needless to say.)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	1. Freya

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so, I may have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about some of the extremely minor characters in Season 3 of this show, and what exactly came of them after the closing credits? That said, I own no rights to any of them, nor to _Shetland_ generally.

It didn't take long for Freya to tidy up her studio, this one tiny corner of her shattered life that could be salvaged. Pliers placed back into wooden boxes, foils stacked back into bundles, buttons and wires sorted back into their respective drawers. And yet Freya still couldn't shuffle herself back into some semblance of who she had been, back when Michael was still alive, back when she still trusted that she knew who he was. Stepping on an errant bead dislodged from under a rug was enough to bring it all rushing back, to make her curl up in her too-large bed with tears in her eyes.

And yet, in the mornings, she still got up, still made breakfast, still forced herself to at least sit in her studio, pretending that she would do some work. Pretending that life could go on.

Jimmy Perez knocked on her door one day, to tell her that the investigation was formally over. Which was kind of him, even though both of them knew that this wouldn't provide the closure that Freya needed. After a pause, he held out a hand and opened his palm to reveal the silver rings that Freya had once made for Michael.

"I didn't know if you'd want them back," he told her. "But in case you did..."

"Thank you," Freya nodded, holding out her own palm so that Jimmy could tip the rings into her hand.

Freya began to grow weary of looking out her window every morning and seeing the unchanging surface of the water and the vast brown expanse of Shetland's moors rolling out beneath a white-grey sky. On impulse, she bought a return ticket to Montreal and spent a week trudging aimlessly through the frozen, snow-piled streets of the historic neighbourhood, watching the cyclists miraculously not skid on patches of icy road. _Marché Bonsecours,_ _Vieux-Montréal_ , she read off a postcard in a tourist shop, next to a shelf of maple syrup lollies shaped like little maple leaves. Could she have learned French? Not much use in wondering now.

On her way back to Shetland, Freya flew through Glasgow, and she took an afternoon to wander through the city, past bookshops and banks and public parks. She tried to imagine what Michael's life might have been like here, knowing what she now knew about him. A big man like that probably had never needed to look over his shoulder when he walked these streets—not until he roused the ire of even bigger men, at least. She wondered if he had even noticed when the height of the surrounding buildings suddenly threw a stretch of street into chillier shadow.

Freya wandered to the centre of the South Portland Street Bridge and leaned her elbows on the railing, gazing down into the water below. Michael's rings dangled from a chain around her neck. Freya had meant to leave them in the places far from Shetland where Michael should have lived out his days: one dropped into the St Lawrence, the other into the Clyde. But both in Canada and now, her nerve failed her. These rings were all she had left of her Michael, after all; not the man that Jimmy Perez and the other police officer had described to her, but the man with the booming laugh and sparkling eyes who had treated Freya with such a striking combination of tenderness and passion. Perhaps that construction of Michael Maguire was just as much Freya's own making as the rings that she had kept to preserve his memory. But, with that fantasy acknowledged, it was her choice whether to keep it or discard it.

And so Freya returned to Shetland with Michael's rings still securely in her possession. She would wear them on a chain until the day she died. But it made all the difference, knowing that she had _chosen_ to keep with her that little piece of him that she herself had forged and tempered and shaped. The morning after she returned home, the same grey sky and placid water and brown moors greeted Freya from her studio window, but after a moment or two of regarding the view without perceiving it, she took a seat and finally got back to work.


	2. Callum

When Callum was seventeen, his best friend Logan pulled him aside just around the corner from their school.

"Look what I got," Logan gloated, pulling from his rucksack a baggie filled with what looked like brightly coloured sweets.

"What're those?" Callum asked.

Logan raised an eyebrow at him.

"Take one and find out?" He pulled open the bag and tipped it, waiting for Callum to hold out his hand. "Go on, then, Cal. Promise you won't regret it."

Callum reluctantly let Logan shake a tablet or two into his palm. For some reason, the sound of waves crashing filled his memory, and sweat suddenly broke out all over his body. Maybe his recollections from a decade ago were as impressionistic and vague as dreams, maybe he had fabricated some of the details based off of the few times his mother had ever been willing to talk to him about it (and even then, she still could only talk for so long before the tears obliterated her speech, clamped up her throat). But the scar along Callum's side certainly was real, as was the kidney that his cousin had let the doctors cut from her own body to save Callum's life.

"Not just sugar, are they, Logan?" he sighed.

"Just _try_ one," Logan insisted. "Or, what, you afraid?"

Logan's family had moved to Bigton when Callum was twelve; they wouldn't remember the panic that swept through the little community, the way that parents had kept their children off the beaches after Callum was hospitalised. Callum didn't blame Logan for doing what so many boys their age did, but nor was he willing to play with fire when he had already been so badly burnt once.

"Not afraid, no," he replied. "Just don't want to."

"Cal!" Logan protested as Callum pressed the tablets back into his hand.

"No thanks, Logan."

Sometime, Callum would explain to Logan why he wouldn't join in his best friend's fun. But not today. Today, as Callum got into his car, his insides felt cold as the water at St Ninian's Beach, and he had to take a few deep breaths before he turned the ignition and drove away, back home to where his mother would be waiting to ask him how his day had been.


	3. Iain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent an entire episode of Season 3 just WAITING for Tosh to have a fun fling with the very cute DS Iain Boyd, especially since he seemed both totally into her and *so* much better than Tosh's annoying ex? But then things played out as they did in Glasgow, and that possibility obviously went out the window. We'll see if I ever muster the time and energy to write a fix-it (or plausible missing scene) in which Tosh and DS Boyd hook up the way I wished they had in canon. But at least for now, here's Iain having a lot of one-sided feelings about Tosh.

Iain thought about Tosh frequently in the weeks after she left Glasgow. Every time he called DI Perez with an update on the Maguire case, a part of him wanted to ask after her, to see how she was doing. But he knew that DI Perez and Tommy were old mates, and he certainly didn't want DI Perez mentioning to Tommy that Iain kept asking after DS McIntosh. Tommy wasn't a _bad_ boss, to be sure but Iain didn't relish the thought of Tommy having any insights into Iain's personal business.

So Iain kept his questions to himself, and was perfectly professional on all of his phone calls with DI Perez. But during late nights at the office, when his brain was buzzing with exhaustion and his vision was crossing from staring at his computer screen too long, Iain vaguely wondered what Tosh was up to now. Whether she was doing okay, in light of having been _kidnapped_ (Jesus Christ) while in Glasgow. No doubt she'd be steering clear of the city for a good while yet, and Iain didn't blame her. He began to ponder whether there would be any work-related reason whatsoever for him to fly up to Shetland for a few days, to check in with the boss up there—and maybe (hopefully) to run into Tosh and be able to say hello in person, without any intermediaries necessary.

Iain was mulling over such excuses one evening, as he cycled home from the office in the twilight with his bicycle light shooting a bright beam before him. He was contemplating Tosh's earnest face, her slight dimples, how her bouts of good-natured exasperation contrasted with her steady confidence in handling Brian McDade. Quite suddenly, something slammed into Iain's side, sending him soaring off his bicycle. Surreally, he heard a loud crack as his head hit the ground. _Thank god for helmets_ , Iain thought as he lay there, dazed.

Through his shock, he became aware of an approaching figure that seized him under the arms and hauled him out of the road, across the cycle lane where his bicycle lay with its wheels spinning dizzily, and onto the pavement.

"Sergeant Boyd," said a low male voice into Iain's ear, still holding him from behind so Iain couldn't see his attacker's face. "Mick Thompson and Calvin Sarwar are both dead, and Phyllis Brennan is in police custody. Considering those facts, I suggest you recommend to Monro over at Organised Crime that he consider this case completely _closed_ , you hear?"

With that, the man released Iain and quickly retreated into the shadows before the winded police officer could turn and see his face. Not that it really mattered who the messenger boy was, Iain reflected blearily as he slowly pushed himself to his feet. Only then did he realise just how much pain he was in; his right elbow scraped bloody where he'd landed on it, his right leg throbbing where it'd hit the unyielding asphalt of the road. His head was also pounding, and since the fork of his bicycle had twisted against the angle of the handlebars in a manner that would have made it impossible for him to steer it anyway, Iain gingerly limped to a bus station and took the bus home, chucking his ruined bright blue helmet in the first rubbish bin he passed.

Iain went to see a physiotherapist the next morning, just to make sure that the 'accident' (if he could call it that) hadn't done any injury to his neck. Thankfully, it hadn't, so he went from there to the office and knocked on Tommy's door.

"Boss," he said, entering.

Tommy looked up from whatever paperwork he was reviewing and stared.

"Jesus, Iain. Rough night, lad?"

Iain ran a hand over the right side of his jaw, which was still tender and had turned a dramatic dark purple where it had hit the road. Then he turned and shut the door of Tommy's office.

"Arthur McCall," he said, lowering himself unsteadily into the chair opposite Tommy as he tried to avoid hitting his injured leg against anything. "Thought it'd be funny to have someone shove me off my bicycle, apparently. He wants you to close the Maguire case completely."

Tommy raised his eyebrows.

"I'll bloody well _bet_ he wants us to close the..."

"Look, you do what you think is right, Boss," Iain sighed. "But, watch your back, eh?"

Tommy hesitated, then nodded.

"I've been meaning to ask," Iain added, rubbing his eyes, "how's DS McIntosh doing, up in Shetland? I feel like shite from just two minutes' worth of being pushed around by those bastards. Cannae even begin to imagine what she went through."

"Requested a transfer, last I heard. Doesnae sound like she and Jimmy had any sort of falling out, though, so must be something personal's come up."

"Well," said Iain, "next time you talk to the team up in Shetland, please tell them to pass along my regards, will you?"

"Aye, that I will." Tommy watched as Iain drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair, looking at the floor. "You know, Iain, I heard there was a spot opening up in the Dog Unit. Not that I'd want you off the team investigating Dolos, of course; you're a crack DS, if I ever saw one. Just in case you might be interested."

"Aye, noted. Thanks, Boss."

Iain crooked half of a smile at Tommy, and then, carefully manoeuvring around his leg, he rose and limped out of the office.


	4. Phyllis

They let Phyllis herself clear out her office, which she appreciated. She supposed she would have granted like courtesy for any of her colleagues, however disgraced; but it still meant quite a lot to her that she was allowed to save that much face, rather than simply being told that all of her personal belongings had been dumped into a rubbish bin somewhere. Police stood by the office door, watching her, but of course Phyllis had no intention of destroying any documents. She very clearly and deliberately left all of her work binders lying where they were, picked up only the various vases and glass paperweights and assorted books that had taken up residence on her desk and various shelves over the years, put them all into a cardboard box that someone had procured for her use.

She stopped, though, when she reached the two photographs side by side on her desk. Of Ben and little Bernadette (as the family had taken to calling her, to Phyllis's utter surprise and delight). And of Rhona. Phyllis's fingers trailed slowly over the frame of the first photograph, and she just managed to internalise a sharp gasp of pain as it hit her anew what she had done—not only to Ben, but to his wife and baby, who also would have to bear the shame of the Brennans' parallel trials. (At least Phyllis knew that her own trial would be quick and as discreet as the Scottish National Police could possibly make it; she had confessed her guilt fully, would contest none of the charges, and could only hope that her sentence would be ameliorated by her cooperation with the investigation into Calvin Sarwar.) Phyllis knew that, short of further illegal intimidation, she could not have stopped Kelly Paterson from renewing her claims against Ben; but her own statement was the smoking gun that would condemn Ben before any jury. _What kind of mother sells out her own son like that?_ she asked herself, sliding into the chair behind her desk because her legs suddenly seemed incapable of supporting the rest of her body.

"Ms Brennan?" asked the officer at the door.

"Feeling a bit faint, please give me just one moment," Phyllis replied shakily, wishing that she could shut the door between herself and the rest of the world and sob over everything.

 _It was the right thing to do,_ Phyllis could practically hear Rhona's voice remind her, and so she set down the photograph of her son and granddaughter and glared at the photograph of Rhona—fierce, beautiful, loyal, wonderful Rhona, who had certainly made her share of mistakes in life but had _never_ done anything nearly as shameful and wrong as Phyllis's error of judgement. Phyllis had lashed out at Rhona when Rhona first suggested that she should have just let justice run its course, but on the flight back to Glasgow, Phyllis's certainty had slowly cracked, the force of Rhona's righteous anger widening the fissures of doubt with every mile that brought Phyllis closer to Ben.

It had seemed so easy, in that moment of fury when Phyllis had realised that perhaps she had sold her soul to Sarwar all those years ago to protect not Ben's innocence, but his guilt. With that horrifying revelation, Rhona's sense of right and wrong had become Phyllis's own, had breached any remaining resistance and flooded her entire being, sent her running straight to Perez to give her statement. Of course she had felt anxious and overwhelmed, sitting there with the recorder, deliberately confessing away a sterling reputation and a painstakingly built career. But it wasn't until much later, after Phyllis had left Sarwar smirking at the restaurant and handed over the microphone and wire to Perez, that it struck her exactly how much she had just sacrificed: not only her career and her liberty, but possibly Ben's liberty. Possibly Ben's love. Possibly Rhona's.

And Phyllis hated herself for still not quite believing that recovering her soul from Sarwar was worth destroying all of that.

She could not crack, not with her guards watching. And so Phyllis exhaled a slow, unsteady breath, and carefully placed both photographs in the box alongside all of the other random trinkets. She had made a decision once—a rash decision, a decision born of wanting so desperately to believe a lie. That decision had hurt countless people: Kelly Paterson, Alison McIntosh, dozens of faceless names whose dreams had been dashed by Calvin Sarwar's financial crimes. And that decision had killed Michael Thompson. Phyllis had never intended any of it to happen, could never have _dreamt_ that any of it would happen on that Burns Night when Ben called her from Level Nine and handed the phone over to Sarwar. But she bore responsibility for her decision, and thus for its consequences.

Rhona was right. Phyllis should have let justice run its course. But she had not, and now she was about to lose forever one or both of the two people she loved most in this world. Their photographs bumped rhythmically against the side of the cardboard box with Phyllis's steps as she left her former office for the last time, flanked by her guards. And the fallen senior fiscal could only pray that Ben and his family and Rhona would be the very last people hurt by Phyllis Brennan's unforgivable mistake.


	5. Lowrie

It had been a long time since Lowrie had drawn something living.

He had almost forgotten what it was like, to have to mask bone and ligament with flesh and skin. Covering everything up was smoother, more uniform, less striking (in his opinion). And yet, when he looked at the fine job he had done on his portrait of Alison McIntosh, Lowrie couldn't help but feel a distinct sense of pride. His decades-long studies of skeletal structure and musculature had created a much more accurate likeness than he ever could have in his youth, back before.

Of course, Lowrie had been incredibly alarmed when Tosh herself had appeared at his door, screaming hysterically at him. But Lowrie recognised the frantic rage and helplessness in her eyes. He had seen it all too often in the mirror, immediately after his brother died, and it made no difference that Tosh's reaction was to lash out, rather than to retreat into herself like Lowrie had. Not knowing what else to do, he made her tea, gave her a blanket and plenty of space, and let her cry herself to sleep in his armchair. That was what he would have asked for, in her place. (It wouldn't have occurred to Lowrie to try to comfort Tosh physically, and this was very fortunate.)

And she hadn't hated him, even after he had made such a misstep. She came back, after all, and shared a drink with him on a much calmer afternoon. Maybe it was because she still made Lowrie's heart flutter, with her pretty face and incisive wit; or maybe it was the fact that she too was now haunted; or maybe (actually, likely) it was some combination of the two, that made Lowrie cautiously exhume things that he had buried so deep within his psyche that he wasn't even sure how he managed to unearth them. It didn't change the situation at all, but some very small weight was released from Lowrie's chest by the fact that Tosh was willing to listen to him.

He didn't draw Tosh again, but he began to want to sketch more living creatures. It wasn't nearly as interesting or unique as what he normally drew, but Lowrie sensed it was good for him, to have to go out into the world and figure out how all of the inner workings of creatures looked beneath the exteriors that most people found more pleasant to view. Lowrie still brought home skulls and squashed reptiles from his walks around Shetland, but he began to bring his sketchbook along with him on such walks, so that if he encountered a puffin hopping about the rocks, he could capture its feathered bounciness in five minutes' worth of deft coloured pencil strokes, before moving along.

And Lowrie noticed that people began to glance over his shoulder when he was sketching animals out in nature. A little girl passing by with her mother stopped and watched with rapt attention as Lowrie rendered a nearby curlew over the course of a few minutes, then gasped in delight when Lowrie shyly tore the page out of his sketchbook and offered it to her. And one day, as he stood by the edge of a paddock, drawing broad arcs and triangles and ovals onto a sheet of his sketchbook, a young woman wandered out of the adjacent house to greet him. She watched from a polite distance as Lowrie's pencil turned the arcs into the graceful curves of ponies' necks, the triangles into heads, the ovals into bodies complete with sturdy little legs.

"Och, you'd better come inside to finish that," she told Lowrie finally, "it's _freezing_ out here!"

Lowrie finished his drawing sitting by a window that overlooked the paddock, as the young woman strode about her kitchen in her riding boots, making tea for both of them. She wore her hair in two short braids, and her cheeks were flushed pink from the chill outside.

"That's fantastic!" she exclaimed as she set a teacup and saucer down on the window ledge next to Lowrie. "Look just like my ponies. You've got a real knack for this. May I?"

Lowrie nodded and handed over the sketchbook so the young woman could take a closer look at the almost-finished sketch. Her dark eyes twinkled in a manner that matched her subtle smile as she admired Lowrie's work. When she glanced at him, he nodded in response to her unspoken question, and she flipped the page over to the previous sketch, and then the one before that, and then the one before that, her smile growing a bit with each new portrait.

Suddenly, the young woman stopped, her eyes widening slightly at one illustration. Lowrie's heart leapt into his throat when he realised that it was a sketch of the deer's skeleton. He wanted to jump to his feet and explain, but explain _what_ , exactly? He didn't even know this woman's name, let alone know how to try to convey to her why Lowrie drew what he drew, how it was his way of trying to understand and conquer his overwhelming fear of death.

"This is GREAT!" the woman gasped, to Lowrie's astonishment.

"Oh?" Lowrie finally managed in a small voice.

"Yeah!" The woman grinned at him. "I'm training to be a veterinary technician, over in Aberdeen, and I have to say, you clearly know your animal anatomy backwards and forwards. You're not in the field, are you?"

Lowrie shook his head.

"Hmm." The woman perused the deer sketch again. "Look, this may sound a bit mad, but one of my professors is working on a new textbook, and he's putting out feelers right now for an illustrator. No idea what the politics of these things are, but I'd love to put you in touch, if you'd be interested?"

This time, it was Lowrie's eyes that widened, and after a moment, he nodded once.

"I'm Ailsa, by the way," the woman added, holding out a hand. "And you're...?"

"Lowrie," Lowrie answered after a panicked moment, before finally reaching out and tentatively shaking Ailsa's hand.

"Lowrie," Ailsa repeated. "You local?"

Lowrie nodded again.

"Well," Ailsa grinned. "Take all the time you need to finish your sketch of the ponies right now, but let me email my professor, and hopefully I'll have more information for you by this time tomorrow, if you can swing by. You got anything more like the deer that I could possibly send him as a sample? Even just phone camera photos would do, if you don't want to give up the originals."

Lowrie nodded again, and Ailsa bounded off to find her laptop with the clomps of her riding boots thundering down the hall. Taking up his pencil once more, Lowrie allowed himself a very small smile and wondered if Ailsa might let him feed the ponies some sugar cubes tomorrow, if he asked nicely.


End file.
